This document is a 5-year plan designed to improve the overall service and performance of Iowa community colleges. The plan emphasizes how the Iowa system values maintaining an open-door policy, responding quickly to students, the community, and industry needs, and collaborating with different educational and business sectors. Four major strategic…

This document, the eighth edition of the "Mini-Digest of Education Statistics," provides a pocket-sized compilation of statistical information about U.S. education from kindergarten through graduate school. The statistical highlights provide a quantitative description of the current U.S. education scene. Data are from many government…

The city of Artesia (New Mexico) was considering the issuance of $210 million in industrial revenue bonds (IRB) for construction of a new poultry processing plant 5 miles west of Artesia in Eddy County. Since property financed with IRB is exempt from all state and local property taxes for the life of the bonds, the city of Artesia requested an…

California policy makers and institutional leaders are making critical policy, programmatic, and budgetary decisions affecting segments of the state's population that lack sufficient levels of formal training and education. These decisions are occurring at a time when five critical trends are converging in the state. These trends are: (1)…

Using data from national surveys, Illinois' higher education enrollment and funding patterns are compared to other states. Conclusions are drawn regarding the state's investment in higher education. (Contains 9 tables, 3 charts and 9 endnotes.)

This exploratory data mining project used distance-based clustering algorithms to study three indicators of student behavioral data collectively called AB-Index, and established a typology of six types of learners for a suburban community college. The study is based on the notion that student behavioral data are a good basis for new ways of doing…

For the first time since the expansion of the choice program to include religious schools in 1998-1999, fewer K4 students are receiving vouchers than in the previous year. This decrease accompanies the first year of implementation of the Milwaukee Public Schools' (MPS) Neighborhood Schools Initiative, which added full-day K4 to 27 MPS neighborhood…

The nation's social and economic future depends on the ability to increase the percentage of students who leave high school ready for college and work. The workplace is changing and demanding a higher level of skills than ever before. Though more and more young adults realize the importance of higher education and aspire to continue their…

Ohio's higher education policymakers are concerned with issues related to student preparation for college and degree completion. Discussions about student preparation focus on the costs of remedial courses, with the implication being that higher education costs will fall if students require fewer remedial courses. This study was designed to answer…

These essays by former Governor James B. Hunt Jr. and business leader Thomas J. Tierney lay out in succinct fashion the requirements of both our nation and our states for new and higher levels of performance from America's colleges and universities. The authors of these essays are not theorists writing from an ivory tower. Quite the contrary,…

California's loss of capital gains and stock options revenue during the recent economic downturn was one of the worst in the nation, and the resulting fiscal crisis led to reductions in State appropriations to the University of 15% over the past four years, while enrollments grew by 19%. This article examines the effects of this reduction in State…

The tables in this compilation provide information about Wisconsin's 426 public school districts, their 2,063 schools, and 988 private schools in the state. In 1996-97, Wisconsin public schools served more than 879,000 students and private schools enrolled just over 150,000. Data are presented in a series of tables grouped into the following…

Since the late 1980s, school choice has become a popular education reform strategy. Parents who select which school their child attends do so for a variety of reasons, including academic, religious, or moral environment, and convenience. Differences in the proportion of students who attend an assigned school and those who attend a school selected…

The years since the fall of the Soviet Union have seen dramatic changes in international relations, global economics, global communications, population migration, and international organized crime. A survey of language needs in the federal government identified 43 countries of primary importance, 19 of secondary importance, and 30 languages…

Survey data for the 1996 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Academic Libraries report are organized in tables according to sector (public or private) and by governing board. In addition to statistics for each library, summary figures for boards and sectors are included. FTE (full-time equivalency) Student Enrollment and…